Rock Rose Pollen and Seeds

Another macro photography example. This one is of pollen and seeds from a Rock Rose, a native plant of Texas. I was actually trying to do another focus stack like I did for the Mud Dauber wing joint but the flower kept wilting. So, I shook some pollen onto the surface and out came some seeds. I mixed the pollen and seeds together. I shot 36 images and combined them into this single image. As you can see, the back side of the image is not in focus. The reason for this is that I did not take enough images. I probably needed 15 or 20 more to make the entire scene complete.

These images were taken with my Canon Canon EOS 5D Mark III using my MP-E65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro lens. In addition, I used 68mm of extension tubes to get a larger magnification. The total magnification is about 8x. The camera was set on Manual mode with the aperture set at f/5.6, shutter speed at 1/8 at ISO 100. I took a total of 36 images and stacked it with Helicon Focus.